


White Lightning

by Unicoranglais



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicoranglais/pseuds/Unicoranglais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He dies, he dies, he wakes, he dies. He wishes, and he despairs, and he hopes...</p><p>(Chishimaru focus, with some (somewhat hinted?) Ishimondo - spoilers for chapter 2 and 3 of DR1. In terms of other warnings - it's an Ishimaru-centric fic, people die, and angsting is had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Lightning

 

They say Kiyotaka Ishimaru cried pretty darn violently when his last and best friend died.

He was sure that the others were glad to see such a dangerous individual put down (yes, of course they were, he was Oowada’s  _only_ friend, after all) – but for him, the only relief from the terrible sight of the execution came in the form of tears. He wasn’t one to cry, he quickly told himself as they rolled down his pale cheeks – no, this was merely a  _coping_ mechanism, so that he would not need to watch any more death. Though tears were clear, they still made his eyes ache, blurred his vision further with every sob, until all that was left of his friend was a gently spinning kaleidoscope. That Ishimaru could cope with; he could stare at the hazy screen Monobear had set up, listen to the rumbling of some sort of engine and the sharp crackle of electricity, and he could pretend that he wasn’t in the trial room any more, that Oowada wasn’t dead. For those peaceful seconds, he could even pretend that everything was all right – Mondo was driving a train, Ishimaru was the train police all on his own, strutting up and down the train, holepunching tickets, telling off someone who  _screamed_ –

–and Ishimaru knew exactly when Oowada died, in that terrible moment of clarity that came with the green flash of light from the screen, the gasps from around the table, his friend’s dying shriek. For a moment, he couldn’t believe it, strong,  _strong_ Oowada, dead, and he screeched in indignation and confusion and grief – but then it was over, the boy’s voice choking into a long, drawn out whine as he wiped at his eyes, trying to save face; failing miserably ( _miserably!_ ) when he risked a glance up at the screen after a long silence, and broke down all over again. He had good reason to – the advertised tub of Mondo butter was the cruelest, most unsavoury,  _sickest_  joke the poor hall monitor had ever heard in his life – and yet his analytical mind was already thinking ‘ _How did he turn into butter? **How?** ’_, accessing his mind’s library for text–book–like information on the chemical processes involved, coming up with formulas, theorems, a hypothesis and theoretical experiment, maybe he’d grab out Chihiro’s body and try a few things, since Chihiro would surely help him t _oh god no!_

Chihiro wasn’t going to help him, not because Chihiro was dead, but because  _Chihiro was dead and hated Ishimaru for it._ If only he’d been more beseeching with his requests for people to come to him for strength – if only he’d been  _strong_ , Chihiro would have come to  _him_ for advice. If only he’d walked to the shy little girl standing in the corner at the start, if he’d offered her his hand... There were so,  _so_ many times he could have,  _should_ have, gone to her. It was the right thing to do, defending the helpless; but every time he’d been about to do something, the clock had called, it was breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or meeting time, or post–meeting meeting time, or Togami was ignoring everyone, or Fukawa had inhaled pepper, or Hagakure’s hair needed a hairbrush taken to it,  _pronto..._

And it was bitterly that he remembered the last time he’d seen her, the tiny, slender doll standing out in the hallway, in the shadow of Naegi’s open door. She stared at him for a long moment, as delicate and as skittish as a deer – and maybe she had gone to say  _something_ , but he knew not what, or even if she’d said anything. You see, Ishimaru, the Amazing, Wonderful, Caring, Strong Hall Monitor, had just observed at that moment that he had dallied on his way to his room – the coffee cup he had in his hand was far, far below the correct drinking temperature. It was a rule to never drink your coffee cold, he recalled from some textbook or other – so, he’d turned and rushed off without so much as acknowledging Chihiro (if she’d ever acknowledging him)–

–and when he  _next_ saw Chihiro, he was dead, whacked in the head by the very person he thought was strong –  _crucified_ by Togami, limbs splayed out in all directions, blood everywhere.

All because of a  _coffee._

A fucking  ** _coffee._**

A coffee, a coffee, a caffienated beverage, a - a - well, a  _cold freaking cup of coffee_  – and now Chihiro was  _dead,_ dead at the hands of the bastard Oowada – well, not technically, seeing as it wasn’t all Oowada’s fault, it was more Ishimaru’s fault - it was all Ishimaru’s fault actually, seeing as Oowada and Chihiro were  _both_ dead andandand–

Wait, what was he even thinking?

 _Oowada killed Chihiro, he’s scum,_ he tried, his inner voice small and weak against the rush of reason and emotion combined, and quickly swept away by the tidal wave:

 _He’s your_   _friend_.

 _Well, Chihiro was murdered by Oowada_ , he tried again, with even less success.

 _Because he never had confidence in you!_ they howled, and  _therefore, therefore, therefore_  – ah he couldn’t stop with the logic,  _therefore..._

.. _.therefore_ , _when you put two and two together_ , the hall monitor decided with a howl that hurt his throat and rasped at the end – Kiyotaka Ishimaru was friends with scum –  _wrong people_  – and couldn’t be trusted by those who needed him  _– right people_ , and God that kind of logic made his head hurt. He wanted to be friends with both Oowada and Chihiro, even more now that they were both  _dead_ and he couldn’t even choose one of them – and did he have to choose, anyway? Ishimaru just didn’t know anything, he decided as he reeled back from the table, head in his hands and tears down his cheeks, because for once he  _didn’t know_  – didn’t know  _anything_ though his mind was full of books, the glory of those printed words now seeming futile, crumbling away like fragile limestone does before the pounding sea that was the hall monitor’s headache. He sat there on the blood–stained carpet of the trial room, unable to move for the terrible thoughts churning away in his head – right and wrong were going  _rong_  (or was that  _wright?_ ), black and white muddling together for the first time in his life, his mind soon a grey, hazy area of confusion. People were calling out to him, but he didn’t care for their pity; he walked alone, that was how it always was–  _unless it’s with Oowada or ChihirohhhhnononononONONO–_

And with that last, panicked thought, he was  _gone,_ oblivious to what people were saying to him. It was as though his consciousness had been cast adrift on a leaky boat in the middle of a storm – he was wet after all,  _salty_ wet with tears dripping and seeping into his shirt collar, dribbling all over his hands. Every so often there was a flash of white lightning, whit hot pain behind his eyelids (the painful strike of a headache), and all he could hear from the others was a low rumbling, not unlike thunder. Ishimaru didn’t know where the hell he was going, either – didn’t know how to steer his boat, let alone figure out what exactly he was doing with the whole boat–in–a–storm metaphor, what it all  _meant._ Everything fitted, yet didn’t – perhaps the grey storm clouds gathering over his badly built vessel were meant to resemble the turmoil his mind was in, but surely grey storm clouds would have parted and shown the sun eventually, and Ishimaru’s grief was never ending. His emotions, like the bleak view the sea offered, never changed; but for one thing the hall monitor’s real–world view  _did_ change (pillow, darkness, brightness, cornflakes, Naegi, pillow, tears, books, pillow, pillow, pillowpillowpillowpillowpillowhallwaycoffeecup _sob_ ), and for another, surely a real sea would give way to land someday. All Ishimaru’s emotions were the same monophonic slog of grieving, and he knew that his mind wouldn’t settle, since he was  _broken_. His metaphor had way,  _way_ too many holes in it, and maybe that was why the boat of his metaphor was so leaky–

–the screen in his hands bursts into light, and time comes leaping back, he stops dwelling in the past –though his lips are stiff and numb since he hasn’t moved them in days, he cheers silently at the sight of his savior. Perhaps Oowada is dead, but Chihiro, She Who Never Trusted Me, she is  _safe_ , safe behind what Ishimaru, high on starvation and grief, fancifully imagines to be bulletproof glass, her casings made of the strongest steel. She’s beautiful – god, she’s beautiful, all thirty–two bits of her operating system so  _united_ ; and now he can hold her as a shining treasure in his arms and tell her that he’s  _there_ , he’ll take care of all her worries. She smiles and she nods at his unspoken request–

–shows him Oowada, because she  _thinks_ that’s what he wants to see,  _thinks_ that’s why he’s crying still.   _Computers don’t frickin’ make mistakes_ , he monologues bitterly, chewing nervously on his top lip, praying and praying that Chihiro will come back and tell him that she–he–whoever it is, Chihiro Fujisaki forgives Kiyotaka Ishimaru. “I forgive you”, she’ll say, and he’ll cuddle and treasure her and stare most deeply into her immortalized features.

Of course, Chihiro never says that, never comes back to say that (it’s just a dumb machine, doesn’t know what to say), and Ishimaru only really feels as though Oowada’s just torn his soul apart, by  _forcing_ him to choose someone to talk to. He doesn’t want to choose, he tells himself that there’s two Ishimarus, like there’s two Fukawas – only difference is, one Ishimaru wants Oowada and one Ishimaru wants Chihiro – and lo and behold, he thinks there are two, and so there are. The Ishimaru that wants Chihiro crawls away from the bright lights of the real world, curling into a little ball in the darkest, dankest depths of his mind, waiting for the day the screen will come, and the screen will speak to him, say words, the right words – he doesn’t remember what, but they’re  _words._ Their sounds are pretty, their sounds are right, they sound a bit like  _ay–fer–giv–yoo_ –

–Chihiro never comes back, never says those things. So, Ishimaru calls the other soul Ishida, and lets him run his life any way he likes, white lightning crackling through his hair and bleaching it, like the white lightning from the leaky-boat-metaphor Ishimaru's long since wished would stay dead. Death does not obey him, however - no, it only  _comes_ to the hall monitor, and like some stupid puppy that only knows how to come to its master, Ishimaru picks death up and embraces it. Let Ishida have tea with Celes, tell him that it's a  _great_ idea to do so - heck, let Ishida be hammered in all the wrong ways (hammered with a  _hammer_ ), let them both die – life’s not right without  _ay–fer–giv–yoo_ , he just can’t bear to live it while Chihiro hasn’t said that thing.

Ishida is too stupid to know Ishimaru's plot (he's only got half a brain, and it wasn't the  _smart_ half), and so those white-lightning eyes close on the world, and he’s wondering if he’s going to see Oowada now. Ishimaru’s eyes don’t close on the world – they were already closed from the moment he let Ishida open them – but he wonders, too, if he’s going to see Chihiro now.

There is a short darkness, a short silence - but then drums are crashing and trumpets are blaring, and it’s like Ishimaru's boat metaphor’s risen from the grave of horrible metaphors, and come back to haunt him in full regalia.

Because when he – not Ishimaru, not Ishida, both and neither,  _he_ – when he sees them, he feels all lost at sea - the hammer’s given him a headache, white lightning through his head and i _n his vision as he ascends, there’s clouds, grey clouds all around him, and then the thunder comes with a mighty peal, and they’re here, they’re here, they’re all here and–_

_(ay–fer–giv–yoo?, he asks - tentatively, hesitantly, **wholly**  
_

_ay–fer–giv–yoo, says the thug, quick and impulsive as always_

_ay–fer–giv–yoo, says the doll, and he or she or whoever comes to him_ _)_

_–and everything's all right again._

_(Even if the people below them are crying...)_


End file.
